


Closure

by ModestFlamboyance



Category: Vagrant Queen (TV)
Genre: Cheesy, F/F, Family Issues, Lesbians in Space, Post-Finale, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25995472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModestFlamboyance/pseuds/ModestFlamboyance
Summary: The Sterzaad needs destroying, and Amae's the only person who can destroy it - but Amae was kidnapped when Xevelyn stole the Sterzaad and hopped to another galaxy. Elida will have to track down and confront her mother in order to find Amae. Their first kiss cannot be their last! Post 1x10.
Relationships: Elida Al-Feyr/Amae Rali
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Closure

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still not over the end of Vagrant Queen and have been ruminating on what could happen next for a long time. So long that I decided to just write it up.

**_Dione. A moon of Saturn. Yeah,_ ** **that _Saturn._**

Seven hundred and eighty-seven days. That was how long it had been since Elida had seen Amae. Three weeks of recovering from her injuries from her final fight with Lazaro. One month of calling in favours, trading parts, saving up units. Twenty-six minutes to get near enough to a former Revolution ship capable of intergalactic travel and steal it with Isaac’s help. 39 seconds to make the hop to the Scadbury galaxy – three seconds of Isaac crying with relief at being in familiar territory. Six months of following rumours and hearsay about two people with a near-legendary ship before they actually came face to face with Xevelyn. One millisecond before she used the Sterzaad to hop her and Volun away from Neptune.

Three days of Elida beating herself up for it.

Four months of gathering more solid intel about Xevelyn and Volun’s patterns. Two months of tracking them, bouncing between galaxies, developing a plan. One day of drinking – heavily. Three months of setting traps. Eight minutes of fighting the woman who had raised her. One minute of silence after Isaac killed Volun. Another minute to accept that Xevelyn had gotten away, again. Two and half months to catch up to Xevelyn, who had grown sloppy without her companion. Three minutes until Elida had pinned Xevelyn to the ground of an abandoned former-Earth colony on Saturn’s moon Dione.

“You’re done, Mom.”

“You’re wrong, my love. I have barely even begun to-”

“Don’t call me that.” Elida was shaking with rage. “If you truly loved me, you would have listened to me when I said we should destroy the Sterzaad.”

“You are afraid of truly being a leader. Of making tough choices which-”

“Shut up! Don’t act like you know me,” Elida snapped. She looked up. “Isaac: the cuffs.”

Isaac had been poised to the side, ready to jump into action at Elida’s word. Having been desperately holding in the urge to jump into impulsivity, being unexpectedly called on to do something important made him forget which leg was which and he tripped over himself in his rush to hand the cuffs to Elida.

Xevelyn used this temporary distraction to attempt to break free of Elida’s grasp, struggling against her daughter’s grip and kicking her legs up to wriggle free. Surprised but reacting instantaneously, Elida re-pinned Xevelyn’s arms so that one wrist was bent backwards and in a breakable position, should Elida apply a little more force.

“Don’t,” Elida warned.

Xevelyn’s lips tightened. She had, for a moment, seen something terrible and animalistic in her daughter’s eyes. She knew then that this was it; Elida would not be letting her go.

Elida pulled Xevelyn to her feet and locked her hands using the cuffs. She and Isaac had acquired them on their journey: a pair of adamantite handcuffs that went over a prisoner’s hands like mittens which, once locked, created a forcefield of electricity which prevented anyone without the key from tampering with the clasp.

“What are you going to do with me?” Xevelyn asked once the cuffs had been activated. The wrinkles on her forehead betrayed the disinterest she feigned in her voice.

“Well if it was up to _me_ , we’d sell you to the highest bidder to execute you as they saw fit. We met a lot of angry people on our journey, all of them eager to help _us_ if it meant taking _you_ down.” Isaac poked Xevelyn in the shoulder and shrank back when she feinted an attack. Even with her hands bound, Xevelyn was not to be toyed with.

Once his ego had been recovered, Isaac continued. “Luckily for you it’s up to Elida, and she’s a lot more forgiving than me.” He looked at his partner, his eager eyes telling her to go for it.

“You will no longer refer to me as your daughter,” Elida began.

“Yeah,” Isaac nodded solemnly.

“We will leave you on this planet, on your own, with no ship and no communication devices. There are enough artificial sources of water and food to keep you alive for a while.”

“Yeah!” Isaac warmed up to the theme.

“Before Isaac and I leave you for the last time, you will tell us what you’ve done with Amae.”

“Yeah!” Isaac yelled, pumping a fist into the air.

At this, Xevelyn laughed unkindly. “The Lorkis girl? Is this why you’re so angry?”

“No,” Elida said slowly, trying not to lose her temper completely. “I was angry that you went against what I said and stole the most dangerous weapon in the known universe so you could force everyone to name you as their leader under a misguided attempt at bringing peace across galaxies, whilst simultaneously proving that you were just like Lazaro and everyone before him who wanted the power of manipulation to make up for some personal inadequacy. I was angry about that. But taking Amae from me? That made me _furious_.”

Elida’s hand that didn’t have an iron-like grip on Xevelyn’s upper arm curled into a tight fist as she felt the rage coarse through her blood, making her boil with it.

“It was a pretty shitty move,” agreed Isaac. “Those two? Cutest couple I’ve seen in a long time.”

 _We hadn’t even gotten the chance to define ourselves as a couple_ , Elida thought bitterly. “Tell me where she is.”

Xevelyn’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve made it clear that you’re going to abandon me on this dismal moon no matter what. Why should I simply give you this information for nothing?”

“Uh, because it’s the right thing to do?” said Isaac.

Elida glared hard at her mothe- at Xevelyn. At no point in Elida’s childhood could she ever remember Xevelyn acting or choosing something simply because it was ‘the right thing’. Where Elida herself had gotten that instinct from, she wasn’t sure. If she wanted to find out where Amae was, Elida knew she would have to offer Xevelyn something in return.

She dropped her hand from Xevelyn. “I’ll leave you the key to the handcuffs.” Elida ignored Isaac’s gaping mouth. “That way there’s a chance you could find a way off this place – I know you’re tenacious enough. But you will leave me alone for as long as you live – I will kill you if you try to make contact again. Do not try to find me.”

Xevelyn smirked with all the arrogance of a former autocrat. She told Elida on which planet, and in which prison, she had banished Amae to. With the information secure, Elida struck Xevelyn on the head, knocking her unconscious. She then threw the key as far as she could among the ruins of one of the failed buildings, and then she and Isaac alighted the Sterzaad-powered ship, moored it to the Winnipeg, and then flew the thing as far away from Dione as possible. They stashed the Winnipeg in a safe location, opting to use the Starzaad ship for efficiency.

They made one hop. Then another. And another. And another. Amae, it seemed, had refused to stay imprisoned where Xevelyn had hidden her, breaking out of the high-security facility along with twenty others who had tried to cross the former Queen mother. Every time Elida and Isaac arrived somewhere they had been assured a woman fitting Amae Rali’s description had been sighted, they would learn that she had left for another planet or moon or satellite “not too long ago”.

Elida was exhausted by the time they hopped to Earth, and not very pleasant company. She always kept the Sterzaad with her when they left the ship unattended, paranoid that somebody would try to steal it, though she never, ever used it other than to power their travel hops. She needed Amae to figure out a way to destroy it.

She needed Amae.

“Hey buddy, how’re you holding up?” Isaac asked tentatively as the two of them walked down the open hatch of the Sterzaad ship.

They had landed in the middle of a few hundred acres of abandoned grain land on the outskirts of Winnipeg, dried and yellowing and overgrown. They pushed through the grass, getting wrapped in the earthy outdoor smell. On the far horizon of the farmland was a house, and that was where they were headed.

“I’m good,” Elida lied. “You?”

“Me? I’m stoked to be back on Earth!” Isaac gleefully rubbed his hands together. They were near his home town – albeit in a section of land he himself had never visited but it still felt like something close to a homecoming.

Elida stopped walking. “Shit. You must be bursting to see Hannah again. And your kid for the first time!”

Isaac’s shrug rolled off his wide shoulders. “It’s been seven years. A little more time apart won’t hurt, right? Besides, I owe it to you to see this thing through. To get you and Amae reunited finally.”

“I’ve been so wrapped up in my mom and Amae – Isaac, I didn’t even…”

Isaac rested a hand on her shoulder easily. “Don’t even worry about it.” He had seen this mission as a way to properly make it up to Elida for all the times he had betrayed her. While she said she forgave him for selling her out to Lazaro, he hadn’t been able to forgive himself yet. Finding Amae would be his redemption.

It took them the better part of half an hour to get up to the house and when they did, the rich smell of grass and dirt was replaced by the heavy aroma of-

“Smoked goldeye?” Isaac hollered. “Hope whoever is cooking made enough for guests!”

“Isaac wait-”

But he was already running up to the white bungalow, limbs flailing with an embarrassing lack of coordination.

Groaning, Elida jogged to catch him up, one hand on her blaster just in case.

When she reached Isaac, he had already knocked on the door and she was hitting him for being so rash when it opened. A small face overshadowed by a thick crop of dark curls peered up at them with hooded eyes.

“Strangers,” the child announced quietly.

Isaac bent down to be on more equal eye-level. In his most charming voice, he said, “Hey kid, are there any grownups home?”

The kid nodded. “Mom’s in the kitchen making dinner. C’mon.” She grabbed Isaac’s wrist and pulled him inside the house, towards the smell of roasting fish.

Elida followed them cautiously, her heavy boots making the natural wood floor creak and groan. She kept her eyes open for any danger, seeing instead cute framed photos on the walls of the child and her mom, a beautiful dark-haired woman with light brown skin.

Entering the kitchen, they were overcome by the heat generated by the oven, as the woman from the photos was bending down to take the goldeneye fish out and set it on the table next to the roasted vegetables.

“Who was at the door, honey?” She looked up as she asked and saw for herself. She gasped sharply. “Isaac!”

“Hannah?” Isaac’s voice was full of incredulous disbelief.

“You’ve got a beard.”

Isaac laughed, “Yeah, I’ve had it a- oof!”

Hannah had launched herself at him and he stumbled back with her in his arms. The couple, held up only by the wall of the kitchen, pressed wet faces into shoulders, laughing, clutching, loving.

“Isis,” Hannah untangled herself from Isaac’s embrace to look at the child gazing at them in awe. “This is your dad.”

It was a beautiful homecoming. Elida watched as the family cried some more; Isaac kissed Hannah, Hannah kissed Isaac, Isaac awkwardly shook Isis’s hand only for Isis to throw herself at him in a bearhug. They squealed, laughed, talked excitedly.

Elida didn’t realise she was crying too until she had to wipe her eyes to stop her vision from being blurry. Isaac, having become attuned to Elida these past couple of years, heard her sniffling and broke off his sentence to turn to her.

“Hey, this is my best friend Elida. She’s from another galaxy, and she helped me get back home to you all. Elida, come and meet Hannah and my… daughter.” Isaac’s grin was adorable.

Elida waved shyly. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“We heard lots about you, too!” Isis announced. “Amae talks about you every day.”

“Amae?” Elida repeated, startled.

Hannah’s smile grew wider. “She told us that you two would find her. She’s been with us for nearly a month now.”

“Amae’s here?” Elida couldn’t believe it. They had been following information that said she could be here, but now that it was being confirmed, Elida found her trust issues coming out. “Amae Rali? My Amae?”

“Yes, silly!” Isis laughed while Isaac smirked at Elida’s use of possessive pronoun. “She’s working in the barn that Mom says I’m not allowed in because it’s falling apart.”

Elida looked at Isaac, her entire face lit up, silently asking for permission to go to the barn.

Isaac, keen to have some time alone with his wife and – _wow!_ – daughter, gestured his eyebrows to reply it would be best if she reunited with Amae on her own. He liked Amae, and had missed her too, but Hannah and Isis were his priority just then and he was confident Elida had some things she wanted to tell Amae without him listening in.

Elida marched out of the back door in the kitchen, emerging outside in the yard. She could see the barn Hannah didn’t want Isis in straight away: the imposing reddish-brown wooden structure was leaning to one side where it wasn’t compressed in the middle, a huge hole gaping at the front. Elida jogged across the dirt, weaving between flattened balls and discarded dolls.

_Be cool, Elida. What’ll you say when you see her? Something romantic like ‘Hey Amae, you look as beautiful as I remember. I’ve missed you’. No, that sounds shallow. What about ‘Sup Amae. You’re as smart and beautiful as always. I’ve missed being with you’. Yeah, that’s it._

By now Elida had ducked under the awkwardly angled front doorway and entered the barn. Inside, ancient bits of forgotten clutter had been carefully organised and arranged in neat piles: rusted farming tools were lined up, crumbling tractor parts slotted together like misshapen building blocks, flat and unusable wheels in towers in order of size. Amae had definitely been here.

Elida followed the clearly marked out path, weaving between the ordered chaos and getting straw stuck to her boots. The deeper she got into the barn, the more certain she was that she could hear a familiar voice.

“…do you know what I mean?”

A robotic voice replied, “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

“It’s okay, Minnie-Bot. I know you’re not as technologically advanced as my Winni-B, but you are an excellent companion.”

Elida pulled herself over the remains of slats from the roof and her eyes landed on Amae, who was sitting cross-legged in a clearing, tinkering with the wiring of a robot the size of her hand.

Elida blurted, “Amae, you look good brain, I missed being you!”

Amae jumped, pulled out a wire by mistake and the robot started to moan painfully.

“Oh crackers!” Amae quickly picked up her soldering iron to reattach the wire correctly. In the loud five seconds that followed, Elida had walked up to Amae and had an embarrassed grimace fixed on her face. Once the robot had quieted, Elida jumped in with an apology.

“I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s okay I-”

They both stopped. They smiled out of not knowing what else to do. Amae was the first to drop her smile as the anguish of the past two years resurfaced, and she stood up to envelop her arms around Elida. After a split-second delay, Elida returned the gesture, breathing in Amae’s warmth and comfort.

“Oh, El…” Amae murmured into her neck.

They held each other close for a while, and who could say whose tears mingled into whose clothes?

When they separated, it felt only natural that they were holding hands.

“It’s so good to see you again. I worried that… But of course you made it here.”

Elida’s expression became troubled as she briefly relieved the journey that had brought her here. “I had to find my mom first and get the Sterzaad off of her.” She fished it out of her pocket. The small black marble glinted. “You have to destroy it.”

Amae’s forehead creased and she let go of Elida’s hand. “Oh! I thought you- I mean, yes, of course I’ll destroy it, you were right about it being too dangerous but… Well I kind of hoped you were looking for me because I meant something to you, not just because I can help you destroy the Sterzaad.”

Elida looked as if she wanted to kick herself. “I’m not handling this well at all,” she admitted, rubbing her shoulder. “I do need you to destroy the Sterzaad but…”

When Elida didn’t continue, Amae prompted her with an eager, “Yes?”

Taking a deep breath and pointedly not meeting Amae’s eyes, Elida let her feelings pour out. “But I also really like you and have spent every day since you were taken from me thinking about how I could get you back. I haven’t ever missed anyone as much as I’ve missed you and it doesn’t even scare me as much as it used to that I feel I could trust you with anything and you wouldn’t let me down.”

Misty-eyed, Amae’s smile was soft and pleased. Her hands gently nudged Elida’s face to look at her. “I don’t plan on letting you down – ever.”

“Good.” Elida was the first to break eye contact – again – and she suddenly became interested in the item Amae had been tinkering with before being interrupted. Elida picked up the doll-like machine. It was heavier than she expected it to be.

“A robot?” Elida weighed it in one hand.

“Hello, I’m Minnie-Bot,” the robot said. It was shaped like a square doll, with arms and legs and a head with no discernible facial expression. “I’m Amae’s companion.”

“Just a little project I’ve been working on.” Amae’s flushed cheeks hinted at some embarrassment. “The technology on Earth is really quite limited in comparison to what I’m used to in our galaxy.”

“It’s really uh… cute,” Elida handed Minnie-Bot back to her.

“Thanks.” Amae adjusted something with it and set Minnie-Bot on the floor. It took a couple of steps before falling flat on its face. “Hmm… maybe wheels?” Amae mumbled to herself.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out when we’re back in space. You’re smart like that.”

“In space? Oh, you want to leave!”

Elida confirmed that was the idea.

“Oh! It’s just so sudden. I’ll have to say goodbye to Hannah and Isis…”

“How did you end up living with Isaac’s wife and child, anyway?” Elida asked.

“It’s a long story.”

Elida sat down on the barn floor, cross legged. “We don’t have to go _now_. I’d love to hear you tell me this long story.” _I’d love any excuse to listen to your voice for an extended period._ “Uh, _please_.”

Amae’s smile was a dazzling sunset as she sat opposite Elida, readying herself to describe her tale.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on [Tumblr](https://modestflamboyance.tumblr.com/)


End file.
